The invention relates generally to electrical contact assemblies and more particularly to an improved self-locking electrical slide contact assembly which requires no special tools for initial assembly or subsequent replacement.
Most electrical contact assemblies used in the prior art require additional mounting structures, such as rivets, screws, or other hardware, to attach or assemble the electrical contact elements to the assembly casing. The use of these additional mounting structures obviously increases the material cost of manufacturing contact assemblies, as well as the labor cost. Moreover, some of the prior art contact assemblies require the use of special tools to attach contact arms to the casing.
The use of additional components and special mounting tools not only increases the cost of the finished contact assembly but also makes field replacement of such assemblies difficult and impractical. A field surface repairman may have to replace an entire electrical contact assembly because he may not have the special tools required to replace a defective contact arm or element.
When mounting structures such as screws are used there is always a possibility of the screw becoming loose and causing the contact arm to shift in position and make an improper contact. Thus the reliability of prior electrical contact assemblies may depend, not only on the contact arm itself, but also on the mounting hardware used to attach the contact arm. Since the reliability of any assembly always decreases as the number of parts in the assembly increases, prior art electrical contact assemblies which require additional mounting structures are inherently less reliable.